Word: pensionable
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...seem to think the people could. Army and Navy communiqués stressed good news, toned down bad. The President, in a testy mood, appeared to feel that the people did not yet understand the war. Congressmen, bogged in gloom and desperately trying to save face on their self-pension bill, potshot at each other...
...mood of biting irony, President Roosevelt made sport of Congress for voting itself a porkish pension plan (see p. 16). Said he: If I chose to pay a few dollars a year until I leave the White House, I could retire on a modest pension of $37,500 a year for the rest of my life.* Literal minds promptly raised a howl. Next day, White House Secretary Steve Early had to explain the President's humor: The Boss, he said, had been speaking "facetiously," had no idea at all of asking for a pension. (Or, mumbled some newsmen...
...Presidential arithmetic was worse than usual. Actually, to retire with a pension of $37,500 a year, the President would have to serve another 26 years (well into Term IX) and pay $131,250 into the pension fund...
...Congress was in an ugly mood. Like the rest of the nation, it was galled by the war news. And it had rubbed salt into its own sores: its pension-for-Congress bill, which the country would not let it forget...
...Senate the name calling was even hotter. As usual the good intentions of earnest Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley paved the way. Barkley (another of the absentees) said the pension law was "untimely and unfortunate"; he hoped a committee would quickly report a repealer; if not, he would take matters into his own hands...